AUBURN GRESHAM — Greater than 20 years after establishing roots on Auburn Gresham’s 79th Avenue hall, a family-owned restaurant has expanded from a no-frills enterprise to a newly designed bar and grill.
With a pop of confetti, proprietor Peter McKnight and native leaders final week marked the official grand opening of Jamaican Jerk Villa Bar & Grill. The restaurant at 642-648 W. 79th St. opened its indoor and patio seating to visitors in September.
Jamaican Jerk Villa started serving spiced rooster combos and gooey macaroni and cheese in Auburn Gresham over 20 years in the past, when McKnight and his late mom, Vinette, opened the enterprise in 2002 with nothing however “a range and grill” at 737 W. 79th St., McKnight mentioned.
The no-frills restaurant established a reputation for itself locally and developed a “loyal following” for its carry-out jerk rooster dishes, McKnight mentioned.
The Auburn Gresham location is the household’s second bar and grill, McKnight mentioned. Additionally they personal and function a Jamaican Jerk Villa restaurant at 2216 S. Michigan Ave.
When Ald. David Moore (seventeenth), whose ward consists of the Auburn Gresham restaurant, came upon in regards to the South Loop location, he instructed McKnight he needed the same enterprise in his ward, Moore mentioned. McKnight instructed Moore if the alderman helped him discover a residence and funding, the household would make it occur, Moore mentioned.
The restaurant acquired a $250,000 Neighborhood Alternative Fund grant in 2021 as a part of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Make investments South/West Initiative, and used that funding to revamp the brand new 4,600-square-foot house, McKnight mentioned.
The grant was a “very important a part of the venture” as a result of it allowed McKnight to save lots of the vacant constructing from the town’s demolition courtroom and procure a bridge mortgage to “make all this attainable,” McKnight mentioned. It value $1.4 million to construct out the bar and grill.
“Developments like this are necessary as a result of it offers individuals the chance to have a sit-down restaurant of their neighborhood not solely to eat, however to commune with each other,” Moore mentioned. “Once we can construct neighborhood and maintain our neighborhood, we will have a clear, secure and dealing neighborhood right here within the seventeenth Ward.”
Now, when neighbors go to the revamped Jamaican Jerk Villa, they’ll have an expertise that looks like “the island away from the island,” McKnight mentioned.
The restaurant serves Caribbean meals and tropical drinks and performs reggae classics over its sound system. The restaurant will even quickly host reside reggae performances on Sundays, McKnight mentioned.
“I really feel prefer it’s a dream come true,” McKnight mentioned. “That is the place we began, and to look at us develop from nothing to fruition, it’s an exquisite feeling. It’s been an extended journey with ups and downs, however by all of it we endured, and that is the reward.”
Opening the revamped Jamaican Jerk Villa on 79th Avenue “looks like a blessing in disguise,” McKnight mentioned. The $35 million Auburn Park Metra station is at present being developed on vacant land throughout the road from the enterprise.
A “reimagined” Save A Lot grocery retailer, the $10 million Chicago Prize-winning Wholesome Life-style Hub, an $8 million neighborhood middle and the Inexperienced-Period campus are additionally on or close to Auburn Gresham’s 79th Avenue hall.
McKnight owns a former vacant tire store subsequent to the restaurant at 635 W. 79th St., he mentioned. He hopes to remodel the house right into a grab-and-go breakfast spot with donuts and low.
“Auburn Gresham is the place we began,” McKnight mentioned. “They’ve made us profitable. There’s nowhere else on the earth I’d wish to put money into however proper right here.”
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